Free Republic

From the Nazis to the Stalinists, tyrants have always started out supporting free speech, and why is easy to understand. Speech is vital for the realization of their goals of command, control and confiscation. Basic to their agenda are the tools of indoctrination, propagandizing, proselytization. Once they gain power, as leftists have at many universities, free speech becomes a liability and must be suppressed. This is increasingly the case on university campuses. Back in 1964, it was Mario Savio, a campus leftist, who led the free speech movement at the Berkeley campus of the University of California, a movement that...

A New York City cab driver insisted Friday that it is his right, hands down, to wear a Nazi armband – even if the Taxi and Limousine Commission says otherwise. As CBS 2’s Lou Young reported Friday evening, Gabriel Diaz, 26, spoke outside of his family’s home in the Throggs Neck section of the Bronx, after he was suspended for wearing a swastika while driving the cab. “I am. I’m a National Socialist – what you guys call a Nazi. I am. I’m a believer of it,” Diaz said. Diaz was suspended for wearing the armband while driving his cab....

Members of the Class of 2014, I salute you. My warmest wishes on the occasion of your graduation from this fine institution. And, before I go any further, I would like to express my personal thanks to all of you for not rescinding my invitation. I know that matters were dicey for a while, given that I have held and defended actual positions on politically contested issues. Now and then I’ve strayed from the party line. And if the demonstrators would quiet down for a moment, I’d like to offer an abject apology for any way in which I have...

Once, Social Security was the "third rail" of politics. Touch it and face political death. Now it is homosexuality. Criticize anything gay people do and you risk ostracism, fines, suspension or loss of your livelihood. Michael Sam, the first openly gay player to be drafted by a National Football League team -- the St. Louis Rams picked him 249th in the last round -- is being treated by the media and those in the gay rights movement as the equivalent of an early American pioneer. Miami Dolphins safety Don Jones, apparently, didn't get the memo. Jones tweeted "OMG" and "horrible"...

a 42-year-old freshman senator, but when asked by Jonathan Karl on “This Week” if he’s ready to be president, Republican Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida answered without hesitation. “I do … but I think that’s true for multiple other people that would want to run … I mean, I’ll be 43 this month, but the other thing that perhaps people don’t realize, I’ve served now in public office for the better part of 14 years,” said Rubio. “Most importantly, I think a president has to have a clear vision of where the country needs to go and clear ideas about...

Our colleges and universities have become infectious breeding grounds of the left, fattening their tills as the students are yoked to untenable loans to pay for often useless educations they provide. The federal government encourages this bubble, undermines free speech and due process on campus by regulation and encourages young people to enslave themselves in this way. Is there a way out? This week two related articles on the federal role in higher education caught my attention. In the Wall Street Journal Daniel Henninger discusses the administration’s Orwellian dictates on Title IX In The Federalist Daniel Oliver discusses the mounting...

The First Amendment won one this week before the Supreme Court of the United States -- by one vote. The close vote in the case brought to mind the old story about the corporate board of directors that approved a resolution wishing its CEO a speedy and complete recovery from his heart attack -- by a vote of 9 to 8. This should have been a simple case and the outcome obvious from the start. But before the justices could do the right thing in a free country, they had to go through an intense and protracted debate. Only then...

After the marshal on Monday spoke the traditional “God save the United States and this honorable court,” the Supreme Court ruled that the upstate New York town of Greece does not violate the First Amendment’s prohibition of “establishment of religion” by opening its board of supervisors’ meetings with a prayer. This ruling would not scandalize James Madison and other members of the First Congress, which drafted and sent to the states for ratification the First Amendment and the rest of the Bill of Rights. The Congress did this after hiring a chaplain. Three decades have passed since the court last...

Flip it Forward, a real estate series set to debut in October, has been pulled by the network after Right Wing Watch reported that the twin brothers, David and Jason Benham, at the center of the house flipping show were anti-gay activists. ... Right Wing Watch reported on Tuesday that in 2012, David had led a prayer rally outside of the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte N.C., where he told a conservative radio show that it was necessary to "stop homosexuality and its agenda that is attacking the nation" and "demonic ideologies tak[ing] our universities and our public school systems."...

Last week, when the NBA banned racist team owner Donald Sterling, some said: "What about free speech? Can't a guy say what he thinks anymore?" The answer: yes, you can. But the free market may punish you. In America today, the market punishes racists aggressively. This punishment is not "censorship." Censorship is something only governments can do. Writers complain that editors censor what they write. But that's not censorship; that's editing. It's fine if the NBA -- or any private group -- wants to censor speech on its own property. People who attend games or work for the NBA agreed...

After the 9/11 terror attacks in 2001, members of the American left found one thing they could all agree on: America's Our First Amendment rights were in peril. The American Prospect insisted on Sept. 12, when the rubble was still burning and the dead had not yet been retrieved, that "a number of government agencies and their cheerleaders would be clearly tempted to lock the Bill of Rights away in some basement dustbin of the National Archives." Two weeks later, novelist Barbara Kingsolver warned, "Patriotism threatens free speech with death." She bravely attacked the claim that "free speech is un-American."...

You can see the video of Michael Coren and Paul Weston on SUN TV by clicking on the "Enza Ferreri Blog" link above.Last Saturday’s arrest of Paul Weston - chairman of the party Liberty GB and candidate in the 22 May European Elections in the South East - for quoting an anti-Islam passage by Churchill in Winchester, and the subsequent charge against him of Racially Aggravated Crime with a possible jail sentence of 2 years, have provoked many reactions. Michael Coren interviewed Weston yesterday on the major Canadian national news channel SUN TV, ironically touching on his “Islamophobia” or, as...

Think of the big issues facing the American public. We now routinely borrow about 40 cents on the dollar for our federal budget, our entitlement programs are heading for a fiscal collapse in the hundreds of trillions of dollars, and our economy has stagnated through nearly five years of Democratic-run economic policy in the “recovery.” What do Senate Democrats plan to do about this? Make it harder for us to complain about it, as John “Doc Zero” Hayward quipped on Twitter: Sure, Democrats have killed the US economy, but they'll fix the problem by making it harder for us to...

Author's Note: This column uses some information previously published in my 2007 column "A Tale of Two Bigots."It's not often that I have to defend a leftist because a university is trying to restrict his First Amendment rights. But I do so whenever I have the chance. It helps to set a good example for my students by showing that the First Amendment is there to protect speech - not just speech you personally agree with. (Note that it also protects those who end their sentences with prepositions). Today, I write in defense a Gene Nichol in spite of the...

A candidate in the European elections was arrested on suspicion of racial harrassment after quoting a passage about Islam, written by Winston Churchill, during a campaign speech. Paul Weston, chairman of the party Liberty GB, made the address on the steps of Winchester Guildhall, in Hampshire on Saturday. A member of the public took offence at the quote, taken from Churchill's The River War and called police. The passage from the book, written by the wartime Prime Minister and first published in 1899, focuses on Churchill's observations about Islam while serving during the Anglo-Egyptian reconquest of the Sudan. Mr Weston...

The leader of the Liberty GB party Paul Weston, who was arrested yesterday for breaching a Section 27 Dispersal Notice, is now possibly facing imprisonment for 2 years. Mr Weston, a candidate in the 22 May European Elections in the South East, was arrested on 26 April in front of Winchester Guildhall for quoting in public a passage critical of Islam written by Winston Churchill, using a megaphone. He spent several hours in a cell at Winchester Police Station, after which the original charge of breaching a Section 27 Dispersal Notice was dropped and Mr Weston was "re-arrested" for...

Paul Weston of the Liberty GB party arrested for the following public quote of Churchill. "In The River War (1899), Winston Churchill's account of the Sudanese campaign, there's a memorable passage which I reproduce here while I'm still able to:" "How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy. Improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live. A degraded sensualism...

oday Paul Weston, chairman of the party Liberty GB and candidate in the 22 May European Elections in the South East, has been arrested in Winchester. At around 2pm Mr Weston was standing on the steps of Winchester Guildhall, addressing the passers-by in the street with a megaphone. He quoted this excerpt about Islam from the book The River War by Winston Churchill: “How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy. The effects are apparent...

There is very dangerous legislation making its way through both the House of Representatives and Senate that will finish the United States. The sharia bill calls for Islamic blasphemy laws — the criminalization of speech that offends or insults — who, exactly? Well, that is up to the enforcer, is it not? On Wednesday, Senator Ed Markey (D-MA) introduced “The Hate Crime Reporting Act of 2014″ (S.2219), which seeks “to examine the prevalence of hate crime and hate speech on the Internet, television, and radio to better address such crimes.” Congressman Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) introduced a companion bill in the...

Happy Saint George’s Day! On 18 April this self-explanatory open letter was sent to the Electoral Commission. How can democratic elections be held if parties are not even allowed to say in any explicit form in official documents what they stand for? ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Dear Electoral Commissioners I represent the political party Liberty GB, which is standing candidates in the South East of England in the forthcoming European Parliament election. As part of our preparation for the election, I recently attempted to register a number of new party descriptions with the Electoral Commission. It was our intention to choose the best...